Blood And Water (15 page)

“It’ll be your word against mine,” said William. “And not just that, there are any one of about fifty tests we can take to prove that I didn’t sign those forms. Do you understand? This will come down to you. Without fail.”

Seb watched his father’s reactions, or lack of, stunned by the absence of remorse or concern for the consequences of his actions.

“What I don’t understand is why you’d do such a thing?”

“Don’t be an idiot, Sebastian – because the bank wouldn’t release the funds without the guarantees.”

“I wasn’t talking about the bank, I was talking about me. Why would you do it to me? Your son. But, now that you say it, why not just give them what they wanted? Why not do it properly? This is a risky game. I explained it to you all from the start. It has huge potential but it’s a gamble, and if you can’t afford to lose you shouldn’t play the game. You can’t afford to play the game, Dad. Not if you’re doing this.”

“Don’t patronise me, son.”

“Well, stop acting like an idiot!” Seb spat, waving a dismissive arm at him. “
You
and your kind are the reason they check!” His voice was rising, his composure shot. “And you charlatans are running this country. Unbelievable. God help us all.”

William watched his son’s display dispassionately, his arms folded across his chest.

“I could be prosecuted or disbarred! Dad, you could be prosecuted, we all could.”

“Oh for God’s sake, Sebastian, get a hold of yourself. Obviously the bank was never supposed to find out. You’ve already said that this is a fantastic project. Nobody ever set out to deliberately defraud anyone. We were just trying to protect ourselves, that’s all. Is that a crime?”

“Jesus Christ, Dad, yes, it bloody well is!” Seb shouted, running a hand over the top of his head. Feeling caged, he turned on the spot. “My future is in the hands of a bunch of politicians, as genuine as a virgin prostitute.”

A knock on the door put a stop to his diatribe and an embarrassed Gladys cautiously slipped her head around the door.

“Ehhhh … sorry to disturb you, Mr. Bertram …” She looked quickly towards Seb who immediately turned away. “I’m done for the day – do you need anything else before I go?”

William ran a hand over his balding head and looked straight at her as if the argument with his son was business as usual.

“No, Gladys, that’s fine. Thank you and have a nice evening.”

She stalled at the door as if about to say something else, looking from father to son, as if concerned that they might do each other some harm should she leave them alone.

“Anything else?” William asked her.

“No, sir. Goodnight,” she said timidly and withdrew.

“
Sir
,” Seb mocked quietly, retreating to the fire.

Grasping the mantelpiece with both hands, he shook his head. What was it about this room? Nothing went right in this room. Being in it meant trouble, it always had, even when they were young this was where things went down – never good, always bad. His memories of being humiliated and lambasted rushed back to haunt him, feelings not so different to what he was experiencing right now. Furious, frustrated and vulnerable, he couldn’t help but think of Rian.

Chapter 13

Unlike Seb, hardly a day passed by when Rian didn’t relive, even briefly, the undesired recollections of that house, standing with his thirteen-year-old hands clasped tightly behind his back, sticky and tight. Like a moth to a flame he couldn’t help but be drawn into the memory of the subdued study and how he had faced his father who was sitting bolt upright and livid behind the antique rosewood desk, his face lit up by the desk lamp like a horror-show ghoul. The image remained as vivid as the day he had first experienced it. He could still feel the tension in the air, smell the smoke from the spitting coals in the fire, hear his heart beating loudly in each ear and sense Seb’s presence on the far side of the door, listening, waiting to be called in, waiting to let him down. It was a moment he would never, ever forget.

The last three weeks of term had been nerve-racking: looking over his shoulder every minute, acutely aware of every whisper, every footfall, and every creak of the old school floorboards. Keeping an eye out for Sully was agonising, and at the same time making sure he steered clear of Fitzer and the strife that inevitably followed him was exhausting. But the idea that once he got home he would be okay was all he needed to keep going. For some ludicrous reason, inside his thirteen-year-old head Rian had thought that confiding in his father was the right thing to do. He assumed he would help, would stop the predictable from happening. It never once crossed his mind that his father wouldn’t believe him.

“How is your father?” Sully had asked that evening in his study, sparking a tremor that ran from Rian’s head to his toes, his voice a silver icy sliver that burrowed its way deep into his heart.

“He’s good, sir,” Rian had replied with a desiccated and shaky swallow.

“And your mother? She looked so well the last time they came to visit.”

Rian looked down at his hands, feeling tears sting the backs of his eyes and all the while Father Sullivan’s hand rested menacingly on his thigh, just above his knee, burning through the coarse material of his grey school trousers to scorch his skin. Where was Seb, he asked himself – he could stop this. Rian didn’t want to be alone with Sully. Why wasn’t he here?

He could help me. Maybe if I scream …

“So, what have you got to say for yourself?”

“Nothing, sir,” he offered, feeling his headmaster’s hand slide further up this thigh, wanting more than anything for the ordeal to be over. Was Father Sullivan looking for him to snitch on Fitzer? He searched his brain for what might, even remotely, be the correct answer. Is that what this was all about, he asked himself hopefully. If that was true then he would gladly tell all and maybe that would stop the hands moving.

“He wouldn’t believe you, your father,” Father Sullivan remarked quietly. “If you told him, that is, would he?” The words were delivered almost as a whisper, seductively.

“About what, sir?” Rian asked, genuinely confused by what he meant: Fitzer or this, the hand that wouldn’t let him go?

“That’s the good lad,” Sully replied, misinterpreting his response as an affirmation.

Bewildered and lightheaded, madly trying to make sense of what was happening to him, Rian thought he might be ill as he tried to decipher how he should respond and tried to weigh up his options.

I’m not tied down, why can’t I move?

“He won’t believe you,” the priest went on, confusing the boy further, “when you say you’re not protecting anyone.” But sincerity was missing from the words, the sly leer undeniable.

“No, sir,” Rian replied, trying to push himself further into the back of the chair, hopelessly, desperately struggling to achieve even just a few inches more of separation between them.

I can stay here and let him touch me.

“You’re obviously good at keeping things to yourself,” Sully remarked as if talking to himself, as Rian wasn’t even there.

Or I can get up and leave. I could explain, tell Seb what happened.

“You don’t like to tell tales, do you?” the priest continued.

I can go straight to Dad . . .

“It could be our secret,” he continued absently, the palm of his shovel-shaped hand now covering Rian’s groin and closing gently around his penis.

Get up! Rian’s inner voice screamed. Get up and leave. Get the hell out of here!

“Let me just check here to see if there is any damage.”

Get off me. Stand up. Stand up! Inside his head the sound of his own voice was deafening.

“He did kick you here, boy, didn’t he?” Sully asked with a small squeeze. “It might be bruised.”

Maybe if I scream, someone will hear me. Maybe he’ll just stop.

“Let me just look and see ...” The priest took hold of Rian’s trouser zip and started to tug it down with such calm, like it was the most normal thing he could do. Like he did this kind of thing every day: examined his students’ penises to see if they were bruised.

Rian was rooted to the chair, unable to move, unable to scream audibly, unable to say anything. But inside he was bellowing wildly. At that moment he felt exposed and like a baby abandoned to the wild. He felt utterly helpless and, despite himself, started to cry.

Maybe if I let him do it, say nothing, he’ll let go.

The tears that had prickled the back of his eyes now flowed freely down his cheeks.

Maybe if I ask him, he’ll stop.

The tears tasted salty in his mouth, the sharp tang of humiliation.

Maybe I just won’t tell. No one has to know.

He let the priest put his hand inside his trousers to touch him. He clutched tight on the arms of the corduroy-upholstered arms of his chair. He let the old hands rotate his balls between his fingers and rub its palm roughly on the small bulk of his shaft. It didn’t feel right. It wasn’t right. His flesh was unresponsive and for a horrible fear-splitting moment he worried that it might not stay that way. What if, despite his terror, he might go hard and make Sully think he liked it. His breath stuttered and his chest shuddered. He had no control. He didn’t know where to look: down at the hand that fondled him or straight ahead into the leering eyes of his violator. Or straight up to the sky and heaven where God was watching and taking notes.

“That’s a good boy,” Sully whispered. His eyes closed over and his previously free hand moved to massage his own groin.

Please, please, God, help me! Rian implored and with nowhere safe to look closed his own eyes and stopped listening, his booming heart drowning out the sound of his headmaster’s malevolent, moaning, saccharine voice.

A frantic knock on the door made the priest pull away, withdraw his hand instantly from Rian’s trousers and stand up quickly like he’d been electrocuted.

“Fix yourself, boy,” he said sternly.

Rian thanked God for the intervention, his head light with the white noise that blasted in his ears and an ethereal aura blurring his vision. Standing up, his legs like jelly, he pulled up his zip.

Sullivan sat back into the chair behind his desk and ran a hand through his hair.

“Come!” he roared to the unexpected visitor.

An apparently hysterical Robbie burst into the room.

“Sir, sir,” he panted, “I think there’s something burning downstairs. I can smell burning!”

“Calm down, boy,” Sully boomed. “Tell me where exactly you think you smell burning.”

“In the back stairs, sir, down to the ref!” he screeched excitedly, referring to the dining hall.

“And what were you doing on the back stairs?”

“I left my assignment in the ref at supper. I went to get it.”

Sully looked discreetly down into his lap, checking himself before standing up to make his way out of the room

“On your way, Bertram,” he said to Rian without looking back at the boy who stood pale-faced and quaking by the chair. “I’ll see you for confession tomorrow evening.”

Confession? It’s not till Saturday – that’s three days away. Why tomorrow? What have I done wrong? Rian asked himself, watching the holy robes sweep and disappear through the door.

Before he left Robbie looked back at his friend, his eyes telling Rian that he knew exactly what had been happening to him before being interrupted by what they both knew would turn out to be a false alarm.

“This way, sir,” Robbie said, running to get ahead of the headmaster.

“Don’t be an idiot, boy! I know where the refectory is.”

Rian made his way slowly back to his dorm. Lights were out but the yellow beams from the multitude of illegal torches bounced from the ceiling to light his route. He stopped outside Seb’s closed cubicle curtain, contemplating whether or not he should call in to him. Through the thickness of the patterned fabric he saw the flicker of the torch as it was put out. Deciding against it he walked past and went straight to his own, pulling the curtain across behind him.

“Is that you, Bertram?” Johnny Jackson asked from beyond the baby-blue partition wall.

“Yeah.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah.”

“So did Sully slip the tongue then?” Johnny asked with a childish twitter.

“Very funny, asshole,” Rian replied, careful not to sound too serious lest Johnny should guess from the defensive tone of his voice.

“Just askin’,” Johnny finished with a snigger.

“And anyway, if he did I wouldn’t bleedin’ tell you.”

He stripped out of his uniform, got into his pyjamas and lay on the flatbed cot face down with his head buried deep into his pillow. While his relief at being safe was palpable, he knew he had just had a very lucky escape. He also knew that what happened wasn’t his fault. He hadn’t done anything wrong. But what confused him was, if he didn’t do anything wrong why did he feel so bad? His guilt and unease consumed him to the extent that he couldn’t remember what it felt like to be without it, even though it had started only minutes before. His head was a whirlwind rushing round and round, his reason raging madly, round and round, thoughts chasing thoughts, answers never quite stopping to be read or understood. And then there was Robbie: the catalyst. If he hadn’t stood up for him in the first place, if he hadn’t challenged Fitzer, if he hadn’t told him to back off then none of this would have happened. Lying on his bed, breathing in the dust and the mites from his feather pillow, there was a moment when he asked himself why he had bothered. He should have just left him be. Turning in the bed he examined the ceiling, the dirty grey ceiling with its nasty hanging lights with their dust-covered bulbs and even dirtier, nastier, glass shades that had seen much sparklier days. No, despite his perplexity he knew for sure that he couldn’t have stood by and watched his friend have the crap beaten out of him. That would have made him feel worse. If there was one thing he was really sure of, it was that he had done the right thing by standing up for his friend in a moment when no one else bothered.